Dist. 27, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/27/q/bon-sent-I-d27-p1-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II. *Whether generation is the account of paternity, or conversely.*

Secondly it is asked which of these is the account by which the other is to be understood: that is, whether the hypostasis of the Father, or the Father, generates because he is Father, or rather is Father because he generates. And that he is therefore Father because he generates, is shown thus:

1. By the authority of the Master in the *littera*: «He is always Son, because he is always begotten»: therefore passive generation is the account of being a son: therefore by parallel reasoning active generation also is the account of being a father, therefore etc.

2. Likewise, according to the order of understanding, "to be generated" is prior

to "to be," and "to be" is prior to "to be related": therefore "to be generated" is prior to "to be a son": therefore by parallel reasoning "to generate" is prior to "to be a father" according to the order of understanding. If, then, the account of the posterior is prior, [it] is not conversely [the case]: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the hypostasis of the Father is Father: either, therefore, because [he is] God, or because [he is] God-generating. Not because [he is] God, since by parallel reasoning the Son [would be] also: therefore because [he is] God-generating, therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. None generates except a distinct person, since "to generate" does not befit the essence, but the person; but the person of the Father is not distinct except by paternity: therefore "to generate" does not befit that hypostasis except by paternity: therefore he generates because he is Father.

2. Likewise, in those things which are not acquired by an act, the habit is prior to the act according to the account of understanding — for since we are not good by [our] works, but rather conversely we are first good before we work goods — but paternity is not acquired by an act in God: therefore in the order of understanding [he] is understood to be Father prior to [his] generating.

3. Likewise, "the Father generates" — this is a certain divine act which belongs *per se* to the Father alone; I ask, by what? Either because [he is] God, or because [he is] God-Father, or because [he is] unbegotten. Not because [he is] God, since then it would also belong to the Son; not because [he is] unbegotten, since unbegottenness names the privation of being-born, not a position: therefore by division [it remains], because [he is] God-Father.

> **CONCLUSION.** *Generation is rather the account of paternity than conversely.*

**I respond:** For the understanding of this it must be noted that here there is a twofold opinion. Some say that since relative properties stand contrariwise in God to how they stand in creatures — for in creatures [they are] as advenient, in God as inhering — that in creatures the act is the account of the relation, whence in lower things "he is therefore Father because he generates"; but in divine matters, conversely, the relation is the account of the act. Whence they simply concede that the Father generates because he is Father; and they deny conversely.

But although that might in some way be grasped by the intellect on the part of the Father, nevertheless if we consider it in the Son, it does not at all seem intelligible that the Son should be generated because he is Son. For it is commonly said, and reason agrees, that what the Son is and that he is a son, this he has through generation: therefore generation according to the order of understanding precedes filiation; and relatives are simultaneous in nature in being understood, not only in being: therefore generation is the account of [our] saying paternity in God the Father. For as passive generation stands to filiation, so active [generation stands] to paternity.

And therefore there is another opinion: that he is therefore Father because he generates. And that this is well said is plain through the difference assigned between generation and being-Father. For according to its proper account, generation names emanation or origin, paternity names a habitude. But it is plain that origin is the account of habitude, not habitude the account of origin. And therefore generation is the account of paternity, not conversely. Thus the reasons [given] for this [opinion] are conceded.

**To the opposed [arguments]:**

1. To that, then, which is objected to the contrary, that none generates except a distinct person; it must be said that it is true that, according to the order of understanding, before generation it is necessary to understand the hypostasis — I speak according to the order of understanding — but it is not necessary to pre-understand it as actually distinct, since it is itself distinguished by the property of generation with completed distinction, as will better appear

below; nevertheless according to the order of understanding the account of distinguishing is initiated in unbegottenness, and therefore he generates, not as prior-distinct by paternity, but as in some way distinct by unbegottenness.

2. To that which is objected, that [it] is not acquired by an act; it must be said that in divine matters no property is acquired, since each is the essence. Nevertheless according to the order of understanding origin or the emanation of origin is the account of the relation, just as in these lower [things] it is the account according to being. Whence as the act of generation is eternal, so also the property of paternity [is] eternal. Whence although it is not acquired by an act, it nevertheless inheres through an act; whence that proposition is false and ought to be proposed thus generally: in those [things] which do not inhere through an act etc., and then the minor [premise] is false. — It can however be said, that this is true of the act which is elicited from that habit, as a meritorious work [is elicited] from grace; but the act of generation is not elicited nor is understood to be elicited from paternity: therefore it is not necessary to pre-understand paternity in order that [the Father] be understood to generate.

3. To that: either he generates because [he is] God, or because [he is] Father, etc.; it must be said that he generates because he is God-unbegotten; and he spirates because he is impossible-of-procession. — As to the objection that unbegottenness is named according to privation, some say that pure privation is not the account of a habit, but privation with some habit underlying is the account. Whence as some liberal man invites [people] to dine because he is alone, so the Father generates on account of liberality, and lest he be alone; and therefore once he has generated and spirated, he generates no more, since he is no longer alone, although he is liberal.

In another way, however, it must be said, as was previously said, that unbegottenness is a privation, which according to the matter is a perfect position. For the Father is called unbegotten, because he is not from another; and not-being-from-another is to be first, and primacy is a noble position. For the First, by the very account of being First, names so noble a position and condition that, as will be seen, to the position of the first follows the position of the second. Whence because [he is] first, therefore principle; because principle, therefore there is, either in act or in habit, that-which-is-from-the-principle. Since therefore the account of primacy in some genus is the account of being-a-principle in that [genus], therefore, because the Father is first with respect to emanation, generation, and procession, he generates and spirates. And since [he is] first in the genus of generation, because unbegotten; first in the genus of spiration, because God impossible-of-procession; therefore he generates because he is God unbegotten; and beyond [this] there is nothing to posit: why is he unbegotten? For since unbegottenness names primacy, and the stop is in the first, therefore etc. And this is what is said below, in distinction twenty-nine near the beginning: «The Father is the principle of the whole divinity, because [he is] from no one»; and this is what has been presupposed in many places above.

**That, however, which moves [us] to say this: the first is the ancient position of great doctors,** who said that unbegottenness in the Father names a fontal plenitude. But fontal plenitude consists in producing. But it is plain that not because he produces a creature is fontal plenitude said to be in him, since this belongs to the three [persons]; nor because he produces the Holy Spirit, since this belongs to the Son: therefore fontal plenitude in the Father posits generation in the same. If therefore unbegottenness is fontal plenitude, [the conclusion] is plain etc.

**[The second argument] also moves [us, namely] the common opinion, which says that unbegottenness is proper to the Father;** but it cannot be proper, and most proper, [a name] which names a notion, insofar as it imports pure privation; for so it belongs to the essence and to the Holy Spirit: therefore it posits something — not [something] absolute (it is plain, since by reason of that it could not be a property) — but it cannot posit a positive respect with respect to the producer: therefore by its own account it posits a respect to that-which-is-produced. But according to the order of understanding the first account of regarding someone as produced is generation: therefore to the position of unbegottenness follows the position of generation: therefore etc.

**The word of Hilary, in the twelfth book of On the Tri-**

**nity**, also moves [us], where he says that the Father is the author of the Son. But it is plain that by "author" he understands not "maker," but "begetter." [Therefore] in that by which it belongs to the Father to be begetter, in that [same] it belongs to him to be author; but to-be-author belongs to him through that which names the authority that is in the Father; but the highest authority is in the Father by reason of unbegottenness: therefore it belongs to the hypostasis of the Father by reason of unbegottenness to generate. And the words of Hilary in the twelfth book *On the Trinity*, if anyone attends, seem to say this, and similarly in the fourth.

**The word of the Philosopher** also moves [us], who says that the more principles are prior, by so much are they more powerful — and that the first cause influences more — and what is simply first, in the highest degree has [power] to influence in every mode. If, then, we see in the order of causes, among which there is an essential order, that primacy makes [there to be] the highest influence in the cause, and a greater influence according to essence: by parallel reasoning, where there is an order of persons, primacy in the first person is the account of producing the others; and because "unbegotten" names primacy, hence it is that it names a fontal plenitude with respect to personal production. And the sign of this we see, that the first [things] in the genera are the principles of the others, and what are simple are for the most part such that there is in them a stop, [and these] have an infinite power, as the point with respect to lines, and unity with respect to numbers; so also the divine essence, since [it is] first with respect to creatures. Whence perhaps, because the divine essence is first, therefore it is most-omnipotent. And because every essence follows the essence of the three persons, it is impossible that one person produce anything without another. Although however the power of producing with respect to infinite persons need not exist, as has been shown above; nevertheless if by the impossible it were posited that a thousand persons were produced, it would be that all immediately proceed from the person of the Father. For as the first cause necessarily operates immediately in every subsequent production, so in its mode in the persons.

**Reason also moves [us] to this.** For as it is possible to understand the hypostasis of the Father and Son without the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit being understood; so also it is possible to understand the hypostasis of the Father, no other person being understood. And then indeed [the Father] would be understood without paternity being understood. And it is certain that this is possible to be understood. For we can, without the plurality of persons being understood, understand the divine nature and that-which-has it, and that it has it not from another; and so the gentiles understand. So therefore understanding, it happens to say of this [hypostasis] and to understand that [he] can generate. By what then can he? I find nothing in that hypostasis except [what is] common, except unbegottenness: therefore, if generation cannot belong to him through that which is common, it belongs to him through that which is proper; this however is unbegottenness: therefore etc.

Again, as we see many persons in one nature, so [we see] many properties in one person: therefore, as for most-complete perfection it is necessary that all the persons be reduced to one which is the principle of the others, so [that] all the properties of one person [be reduced] to one which is the account of the others. But in the Father there is paternity and unbegottenness and spiration; but unbegottenness is not reducible to the others: therefore it is necessary that the others be reduced to unbegottenness, which is, as they have said, fontal plenitude.

**A third [argument] also.** Furthermore, the property of paternity and generation, as far as concerns its general signification, is communicable; which is plain in creatures: for the begotten generates, and the son of one becomes the father of another. In divine matters, however, paternity is incommunicable: therefore since

this is not from the account of paternity insofar as paternity, it will be by reason of something which is incommunicable; but this is unbegottenness or primacy, since the first cannot give to another primacy, and the unbegotten cannot generate an unbegotten: therefore it seems that in divine matters the hypostasis of the Father therefore generates because [he is] unbegotten.

Lastly, since the same is *first* and *principle*, as is plain and the Philosopher says; either he is first because principle, or conversely. It is plain that the account of principle belongs to him because he is first; therefore he has this *per se*. And it is plain that the stop is in the first principle, not because principle, but because first. And it is plain that this is a condition of nobility: therefore since the Father is «the principle of the whole deity», as Augustine says, this is because [he is] the first person, and through this because [he is] unbegotten.

**Epilogue.** This has been said without prejudice to others. For each of these positions is great, and neither is to be despised; but this one seems to fall in the intellect more than the first, especially if regard is had to the proper acceptation of paternity itself, which is truly relation and at once nature with filiation, and cannot be abstracted from the nature and property of relation; whence it imports a habitude to the Son just as "to generate" [does]. Therefore this position also seems more intelligible; and this will better appear below when treatment is made of unbegottenness.